


When I said I'd take a bullet for you... I meant it

by starbirdrampant (ineasako22)



Series: Tumblr writing prompts [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, There's always a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9680828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineasako22/pseuds/starbirdrampant
Summary: Finn and Poe run into a bit of trouble on a diplomatic mission.A response to a prompt bybeautifullightson tumblr."send me a made-up fic title and i’ll tell you what i would write to go with it" tumblr prompt





	

Finn pressed himself against a crumbling wall, trusting that the afternoon shadows wouldn’t betray him to the squad of First Order stormtroopers picking their way down the haze clouded street.

“How many?” Poe asked, crouching behind him.

“Two squads,” Finn replied, after a mental count. “Almost ten men.”

“So we’re stuck,” Poe sighed. “Let’s hope they haven’t found the shuttle.”

“They haven’t. There’d be a lot more than two squads otherwise.” Finn peered down the street again. “They’re moving in a search pattern though. We’ll need to leave soon.” He glanced back at Poe. “Any word from BB-8?”

Poe shook his head. “Radios are still down. He’ll make it though.”

Finn grinned, fierce but fleeting. “I’m not worried about that, I’m worried about _us_. If the First Order is using the search pattern I think they’re using, then it’s going to be kriffing impossible to get back to the spaceport.”

“Got a plan?” 

“Maybe.” Finn checked the street again, noting the stormtroopers’ changed positions. “But it’ll be rough. We don’t have all the gear I would like to be able to do it.”

“So… hold-out blasters just aren’t going to cut it?” Poe asked with a teasing smile.

Finn made a face. “No they are _not_ ,” he said primly, his mouth fighting against a returning smile.

The sudden clatter of boots on shattered stone, too near to their hiding place, silenced their whispered discussion and sent Poe and Finn crouching closer to their lone, protective wall.

Finn caught Poe’s eye. _“Back. Left,”_ he signed, his fingers fumbling with the unfamiliar Resistance hand symbols. “ _Side. Street. Roof. Danger.”_

Poe nodded and carefully shuffled back down the alleyway, heading for a side street they’d reconned earlier. 

Finn spared one last glance for the stormtroopers, his lips thinning as he wondered vaguely if they even know who he was, or who he’d been. He wouldn’t put it past the First Order to hide the fact that he used to be one of their stormtroopers and just paint him as Rebel fighter with no history. When they got back – and they would, they _would_ get back – Finn made a mental note to talk to General Organa about some new “announcements” to slip into the First Order data streams.

By the time the stormtroopers reached the low wall Finn and Poe had been hiding behind, the only sign of their presence was their rapidly fading footprints in the dust.

Finn caught up with Poe sooner than expected, at the juncture of a narrow alleyway they’d used earlier with a busy street that was now swarming with stormtroopers, tanks, and walkers, all headed towards the shabby spaceport where they’d parked their shuttle…

And BB-8.

“I hope you have a plan now, buddy,” Poe whispered. “Or we’re in a whole lot more trouble than before.”

“Yeah, I’ve got something, just let me–”

Poe’s eyes widened, and he lunged forward, knocking Finn out of the way just as he smelled the hot ozone of blaster-fire. He felt the wave of heat pass just over his shoulder and heard the sizzle of–

Poe crumpled against him.

Gravel crunched behind him and the barrel of a standard First Order blaster pressed against the back of Finn’s skull, still warm from the discharge.

“On your feet, rebel scum.”

Poe, still draped over Finn’s ribcage, was unmoving, his head hanging low against Finn’s back. Finn would have feared the worst except… there, a breath, barely warm through the grit and dust coating the layers of Finn’s jacket.

“I said, on your feet, rebel. Or you join your friend.”

_One shot, off center-mass_ , Finn thought as he reached out with the Force. _Still breathing…_

_Stay alive, Poe._

“I won’t say it again. On your f–”

Finn _shoved_ at the stormtrooper, sending him ass over helmet all the way back down the alleyway. The noise from the street next to them thankfully covered the clatter of the trooper’s armor, but the commotion would be noticed sooner or later.

But first, Poe.

“Poe, hey Poe,” Finn whispered, carefully shifting Poe off of him and onto his back on cobblestones. “Hey, buddy, are you still with me?”

Poe’s face twisted and Finn stared with alarm as the spot of red that inched its way onto Poe’s lips. “Yeah, I’m still with you.” Poe coughed. “Was I… supposed to go somewhere?”

There was a charred spot low on Poe’s ribcage where the blaster bolt had hit, singeing through the paltry layers of the uniform jacket Poe was wearing. It didn’t seem life-threatening, to Finn’s eyes, but that blood in Poe’s teeth shouldn’t be there.

“We’re supposed to get back to the shuttle, remember?” he asked Poe, carefully yanking out a bacta-patch from one of his pockets and settling it on Poe’s wound under the jacket. “And then you had the gall to get shot, Dameron.”

Poe grinned, then grimaced. “Hey, when I said I’d take a bullet for you, I mean it. Maybe not quite so literally, but I meant it.”

Finn pressed hard on the edges of the bacta-patch, sealing them down. “I’d rather you hadn’t, you know.”

“Not your choice to make, buddy.”

Finn pressed his forehead to Poe’s, breathing in his unique scent of leather and starfighter in an effort to calm his nerves. Poe carefully threaded his hand into Finn’s hair and pressed back reassuringly.

“Hey,” said Poe. “I’ll make it, yeah?”

“You’re damn straight you will,” Finn growled, though the kiss he pressed to Poe’s lips was gentle. “At least we have a better gun now,” he said, grabbing the blaster that had dropped when he’d shoved the stormtrooper back.

Poe wrinkled his nose. “I’m not sure how I feel about you carrying the blaster that shot me.”

Finn grinned. “Think of it as poetic justice. Now come on.” He levered Poe off the ground, making sure to slide his arm under Poe’s left shoulder so as not to aggravate the wound. “We’re getting off this rock before you decide to do something ridiculous again.”

Their going was slow, broken up as it was by hiding from stormtrooper patrols and ducking back into shadowed alleyways at the slightest noise. But eventually they made it to within sight of the hangar where their shuttle was stored.

Of course, it was surrounded by troopers.

“At least they haven’t realized it’s a Resistance shuttle,” Poe gasped, his face a pasty, disconcerting white. He gratefully collapsed against the wall once Finn released him from his grip.

Finn could hear the wheeze in Poe’s voice from where he stood, and for a moment, he was back in armor again, feet buried in the sands of Jakku, with three lines of blood dripping into his viewport and the smell of it thick in his nostrils even through the helmet filters. Then Poe made a rude noise under his breath and Finn jolted back to reality.

“You know I love you, Finn, but sometimes the First Order is just too damned efficient.”

Finn snorted. “We are trained for that, you know. It was kind of important.” He glanced out at the squadron of troopers lazing in front of the spaceport. “But I see where you’re coming from.”

“You think BB-8 made it?” Poe’s voice was quiet.

By the spaceport, a dozen stormtroopers suddenly sat up, their hands on their weapons and one or two with their hands pressed against where their ears would be under the helmets. Like the ripples of a pond, the rest of the troopers jerked to alertness, pulling their blasters to their chests and scanning their immediate area.

“ _Fierfek_ ,” Finn muttered, his eyes narrowing. “You know, Poe. I might be inclined to agree with you on this one. The First Order _is_ too damned efficient.”

Poe didn’t answer.

Finn cursed, dropping to a crouch to check Poe’s pulse. The faint rise and fall of Poe’s chest was reassuring, but the faint gurgle on each exhale was definitely _not_. 

Finn scanned the stormtroopers again, his hand falling to the bundle that had been tied to his belt for the better part of the past two months. It wasn’t finished yet, not by a long shot, but if it was the only way to get to that shuttle…

Two X-wings screamed by overhead, buzzing the buildings until little crumbs of rubble fell to the street below. For one startled moment, the entire street lay still. Then the stormtroopers jerked into motion like bugs on the underside of an unearthed rock, scattering into their speeders and taking off in the direction the X-wings had gone.

If Finn were anyone else, he would probably be immobile from relief, but he was himself, so he carefully slung Poe over his shoulder and made his way, slow and creeping, across the street into the spaceport.

Rey was waiting for him at the _Millennium Falcon._

“Sorry we’re late,” she said, leading the way up the ramp and sweeping debris off the spare bunk in the rec area. “Had to bring in the fleet to fight off the star destroyers.” She pressed her hand against Finn’s shoulder as he settled Poe into the array of assorted med-gear the _Falcon_ had to offer. “There’s a cruiser in orbit. He’ll be okay.”

_I know,_ Finn thought, as Rey returned to the cockpit and lifted the _Falcon_ to the sky.

There was indeed a cruiser in orbit, and after the fleet hyperspaced out of the system, Poe was transferred to the med bay. After only a week in bacta – “He got it easy compared to you,” Rey said conversationally on one of their vigils in the med bay – Finn woke up from a nap to find Poe staring at him bemusedly.

“This feels very strange,” he told Finn. “Me in the bed and you in the chair. I’m not sure I like it.”

Finn made a face. “I _know_ I don’t.” He pressed his lips to Poe’s, relishing in the warm skin and pulse under his fingers. “So _don’t do it again._ ”

Poe grinned, slow and easy. “Yes sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr is here.](http://starbirdrampant.tumblr.com) Come say hello!
> 
> If you would like to send in a title prompt of your own, just let me know what it's for so I don't get a random ask out of the blue!


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